And, just like that, we graduate from Newborn to Infant and bid adieu to the Fourth Trimester. I can’t take it, this time whizzing by faster than light. It’s breaking my heart. Slow down, let that baby scent linger!

~

Madness is being passed out on the recliner after a nonstop day of solo caregiving, missing him acutely as his Daddy puts him to bed.

#WhereIsOJAndWhoIsThisFreak #NeedOneMorePeek #BringBackMyBaby

~

‘Tis true, men with Parsi mothers are the yummiest creatures to walk the planet. Case in point:

1) Farhan Akhtar 2) Rahul Khanna 3) John Abraham 4) My son

Q.E.D.

(P.S. Rahul Khanna responded, saying his mother will be absolutely thrilled to hear this. Guess who was absolutely thrilled to hear from Rahul Khanna.)

I stand over him, watching him sleep, gushing about the perfect curve of his cheek, loath to go to bed. Daddy is under the covers with his tablet already, rolling his eyes at Mummy for being this besotted. I ignore him and continue to gaze at Mr. Bean, soaking up every centimeter of his babyness.

Until, something occurs to me and I realize that the pater hasn’t been reading at all. He’s been admiring the 3000 pictures he clicks of our son each morning. While the fruit of his loins is 4 feet away.

I’m trying to remember whether there was snow on the ground that day. I know it was bitingly cold, the sky was a glorious winter blue, the sun shone like a superstar who couldn’t acknowledge his best days were behind him, and my biggest concern was fitting all my precious shoes into two suitcases as I readied to begin a new chapter in the country of my birth.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I casually wrote a post called Shoes Blues. I even uploaded a picture, because that’s what you were supposed to do, nobody only read words. All of two people looked at the post, not counting myself. Who knew what this whole blogging thing was, anyway? It was January 26, 2006, and life was about to change big time. Only, I didn’t know back then that it was the blog that would propel the biggest changes of all and remain my steadiest constant over the next decade. A page I goofily christened Wisdom Wears Neon Pajamas, after the bright orange Eddie Bauer pjs I happened to be wearing that very minute. Yes, imagination has always been my strong suit.

It would be interesting to look back at my journey since: the amazing highs, the stressors only a twenty-something can handle without turning grey, the lessons that chiseled away at me, the teachers, nasty and kind. But I’m on a tight clock with a wakeful baby and don’t want to sound like a granny reliving her heyday. I’m a steady sort, a creature of habit. I’ve had the same bestie for 21 years. Ditto favorite authors and hairstyle. I like my coffee exactly the same each morning, and only the Boy’s surprises aren’t stressful for me. So it’s not really a whoa moment for me that this blogaroo baby has lasted a decade, because it’s been such fun! Really, such fun. It married words and community and fresh ideas from some terribly sparkling minds. And gifted me friendships. A solid, warm, sustaining sisterhood. So much gratitude to the universe for it all!

This blog isn’t going to last another decade. I have my doubts about the end of the year. But that’s okay, because everything has its time, and other platforms were bound to shunt out this early form of self-expression. So pardon me if, between the books I race to catch up on and the simmering something on the stove (hey, can’t have a birthday post without an alliteration!) and Herr Toddlemeister’s shenanigans, we don’t exactly party here anymore. But thanks for all the fish. For reading, chiming in, telling me that you exist. For seeing the heart on my sleeve and treating it gently. Funnily enough, only a clutch of folks in my offline life know that I have a blog, and that’s exactly how we’re going to keep it, you and I. 😉

To 10! It’s been a whopper of a journey. See you next week for Truesday Tales?

HAPPY 2016! Here’s the new series I promised and hadn’t delivered on so far.

Like I mentioned in this post, I cheated on this blog last year with a very obscure social media platform that not many of you will have heard of. It rhymes with ‘Thace Puk’ and I got into the habit of sharing my exalted views on baby poo and such like with friends who couldn’t disown me if they tried. Starting with this post, I will share these snippets from the past year on ze blog every Tuesday (or Friday, which is basically the same thing in MummyLand) until I run out of posts (or steam or banana chips). Why Tuesday? Because:

a. It is the farthest day from Monday, and hence the happiest day of the week

b. I was born on a Tuesday, and hence it’s got to be the happiest day of the week

c. Tuesday = Thursday = DontKnowDontCareDay

d. All of the above

Feel free to bump me off your reader when the posts get poo much for you! Although you’d really get an education in color and texture if you stuck around. Wait! Come baaaaaack!

~

And then there’s the beaming 4 am smile, right after he’s refused to burp AND peed on you.

You know it’s probably an involuntary muscle at work, but who’s to tell your lurching heart that as you sit there, drenched in urine and marveling at how amazing your life is.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Parenting is the ultimate example of Stockholm Syndrome.

A year. It’s been a whole 365 days since this happened and I played a cheesy Disney song to announce it. Clearly, I’m not going easy on the cheese anytime soon, for here’s a letter I wrote my baby today, on his 1st birthday, as I watched him sleep and plotted how to sneak in a few kisses while he couldn’t protest. Thanks for being patient with my absence from this blog and coming along on this journey with me. Things will be more regular around here, fingers crossed, because we have a new series starting on the blog next week!

~

My precious pumpkin, Daddy’s titto tapeto, our babyjaan,
Today is a day I did not dream of. Blame it on your Mummy’s limited imagination. I couldn’t look past my pregnancy beyond the point of your birth. I knew the months that followed would be a whirl, a blur, and require all my resources, so your first birthday wasn’t something I actively thought about. Yet, here we are. And I’m short one infant and tall on a trailblazing toddler.

I have frequently wondered after having you why people (and parents in particular) focus so heavily on the hardest bits of those early months. They go on about sleep deprivation and 360 degree life changes. Nobody actively comes up to you and simply says this:
It will be more wonderful than you ever imagined.

And it has been. It is.
Except for 3 hellish days in the hospital at 9 weeks old, when you smiled at us through a haze of 103 degree fever, every day has been pure joy, every moment a blessing, every smelly diaper as fragrant as Kate Spade’s latest perfume. Okay, I kid about that last one.

From beaming megawatt smiles starting at 6 weeks to calling out to passersby in the park to charming a planeload of passengers, people are your thing. In your universe, there are no strangers, only babies and big people waiting for the immense privilege of showering Your Royal Divaness with attention. First-born much? To steal a line from Plath, you endow the sun with gold, our gleaming California raisin.

Before you arrived, I was convinced you would be your own person, with independent attributes and characteristics. So it came as a surprise (and a burgeoning sense of alarm) to see you were so like me. Not just the shape of my eyes and my poker straight hair and large flat feet, you have a giant dose of your mother’s rather… umm, wilful, voluble personality, and poor Daddy doesn’t know what hit him. Two fire signs in the house are a shade too much roaring for your patient, gentle father, the love of your life and clearly your preferred parent.

I am your dal chawal, your constant, your everyday. You can’t miss someone who won’t go away. But Daddy, he’s your tandoori chicken, the cherry atop the icing atop the butter sponge cake, and my gladdest, most contented moments this past year have been watching the two of you together, mock-wrestling, giggling, grabbing hair and collars and using Daddy’s ears as handles while perched on his shoulders.

You complete us in ways we never thought possible. Physically, Daddy and I are ready to retire and nap for 7 years. As late 30s parents, the relentless exhaustion of it all has taken a toll, to be honest. But we wouldn’t have had you at any other time. Because it is now that we are mature enough to enjoy you without sweating the small stuff, stable enough to be a team and provide well for you, and old enough to know what matters to us without getting into skirmishes with other parents on their opinions and preferences.

With the exception of your refusal to sleep through the night consistently, you’ve been an easy baby, doling out radiant smiles to everything in your path, staying on a schedule like a clockwork mouse, adjusting your own meal and nap times as you grew, and amusing yourself while I tended to chores. You are secure in the knowledge that you can roam free, Mummy is a mere grunt away at any given time, and I love how you look back to check for approval for just half a tick before you hurl yourself into new discoveries or at an unsuspecting person not used to your friendliness.

And this is what I wish for you today, my solitary-candled babe: Fly into this world that so fascinates you, fling your arms around it, I will ardently wish for it to love you back. And when you need the comfort of home, my sweet child, your dal chawal will always be waiting.

Happy birthday, mein Liebling. Mummy’s got the whole world in her hands. ❤

In California a wee monster roams
Waiting to creep into all of your homes
Flat of foot and frugal in teeth
I can assure you his name isn’t Keith

Explorer by day, hell-raiser by night
This shoe-chomping tot is quite a sight
In the home of the brave and the land of the free
He takes liberation seriously

Screeches and wails
To be released
Tries to eat snails
And every odd beast

He knows how to charm
From here to LA
Turns off your alarm
Then makes his foray

Don’t you be fooled
By the coos and the smiles
His parents are ruled
Until they’re slumped into piles

Before his appearance, Mummy would dine
Without the backdrop of a ceaseless whine
How must silence feel, she’d love to know
But when it’s quiet, it’s alas and oh no!

Now here’s the queer thing, this monstrous child
Makes Mummy’s heart sing and her hair look wild
She’ll take no sleep, she’ll embrace a mess
He makes her weep, she will confess
But this ball of Sun, every inch of her heart,
He’s the One, Prince BurpinFart. ❤

Poetry sorts my soul. Feeds it morsels of digestible nutrients, just as it is about to keel over from starvation. It swishes in, linen a-flapping, a crisp, brisk Nanny organizing my emotions, clearing out the clutter, neatly labeling, allotting buckets (transparent) so I may remember where I put my feelings.

~

In a moment of painful revelation, I see. Our love for each other will never be uncomplicated.
Perhaps I err. For the emotion is simple. It lays open unselfconsciously, in plain sight. But far too many feed off our cord. Sating their bloodlust on our abundance.
To the point where intrusion invokes murder.

~

Along with the gush of blood and birthing fluids came a rush of words. An unexpected side effect of labor. And, unlike the perfectly formed but fragile entity they delivered into my arms, the words they poured strong and insistent. Demanded I pay court. Danced circles around my shadowed eyelids and wouldn’t leave well enough alone.
So I wrote furiously in my head, even as the baby hungered at my breast; scripts and rivers and torrents flowed, swirling thick in the air around me. I breathed out lines. Sent them to live with my now-vanished placenta.

And such is the nature of new motherhood that nobody knew (until now) how much of the blood was the doing of my leech-like stories.